When regular networks like NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX put their shows on hiatus, they line up mind-numbing, inexpensive-to-produce fare for us to consume while Mark Harmon, Alec Baldwin and Patrick Dempsey (and their expensive hair, wardrobes and sets) get a well-deserved vacation.

CBS will bring back the blight that is Big Brother for the fourteenth (!) time, ABC will rock our world with Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition and NBC will be grossing us out with a weird Survivor-meets-The Bachelor hybrid called Love in the Wild.

If summer television programming is junk food for the brain, then FOX Television is the drive-thru and Gordon Ramsay is the guy slinging the burgers and fries. This summer Ramsay is spearheading three shows for Fox: the wildly popular humiliation-and-shout-fest Hell's Kitchen comes back for season ten, the much more interesting, foodie-driven Masterchef will follow HK for its third season, and, finally, Ramsay's newest reality show, Hotel Hell, will debut.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to chow down.

You know how when you stop being a student, and you get a job, summer vacation stops being special? (Unless you're a teacher, of course.) And then weekends become your big thing, right? You wait all week for those two days you have off. Only sometimes you end up like me, a freelancer who works for herself, and weekends -- and evenings -- tend to lose any kind of special feeling, because you end up working a lot of weekends and late nights. So while I have found it impossible to reclaim the decadence of evenings and weekends off, I have found a way to reclaim the delicious, relaxing vibe of summer: television.

I'm stocking up on wine coolers this weekend and setting the DVR for this trio of Gordon Ramsay shows, and I won't apologize for it, either. Sure, I could devote that time to finally watching Downton Abbey or cleaning my bathroom or reading the stack of books on my nightstand, but c'mon -- I work hard. I deserve a little mindless fun, don't I?

And frankly, even if these shows are mindless junk food, they are going to take a certain amount of commitment and dedication. Hell's Kitchen premieres at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29, and leads straight into the Master Chef premiere at 9 p.m.; the next week HK expands to two nights a week, and will pair its second episode with Hotel Hell, which premieres on Monday, June 4, at 9 p.m. Whether Master Chef will have a second weekly episode has yet to be announced, but if it does, we have to be prepared to commit to between five and six hours of Gordon Ramsay every week.